


Not To Be Overheard

by liquidCitrus



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Coping, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Guilt, Houston Spies (Blaseball Team), Implied/Referenced Character Death, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Murder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Team as Family, tradecraft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-30
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:41:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27793237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liquidCitrus/pseuds/liquidCitrus
Summary: "Is it the not being a good person thing again?"Alex smiles despite themself. "Am I really that predictable?""I mean, you came to the other person on the team who has a guilt streak as wide as yours. Stands to reason."A close friend dies, and Alexandria Rosales comes face to face with their guilt and self-worth problems.
Relationships: Alexandria Rosales & Fitzgerald Blackburn
Kudos: 16





	Not To Be Overheard

**Author's Note:**

> Well, this sure is a whole lot of projection!
> 
> I don't see much fiction in which characters already have very solid social support and coping skills and still struggle with mental illness anyway. I suppose I will have to be the change I want to see in the world.

To everyone else, the Spies are a mostly faceless unified front, hat-brims pulled low and fastballs vicious. There's Son, of course, and sometimes the newer transfers take off their trenchcoats afterwards and talk with the media. But as far as anyone else is concerned, the Spies are deathly serious, their main response to a win and a loss alike a nod and a "good game."

To everyone else, the Spies are the designated drivers of all of Blaseball. Spies do not typically get drunk at parties lest they let something slip, are generally given enough training in hand-to-hand to break up fights, and are widely considered to have the best hangover treatment (which they haven't had the heart to tell anyone is just Glatorade diluted to half strength).

To everyone else, the Spies are the ones who refuse the gods their chosen epithets and call them Peanut, Squid, Coin: not an announcement of any particular plans to take them down, merely a declaration that they are no better than anyone else and will be treated as such. A quiet defiance, and yet no less powerful for it.

The Spies put up a pristine, professional, distant front, whose support and influence are - while caring - impersonal and largely deniable.

If they are as traumatized as anyone else in Blaseball, they do not show it.

If they break down, it is never where anyone can see.

* * *

To everyone else, Alexandria Rosales is the implacable, ruthless Most Vicious Player on the Spies, terrifyingly good no matter where they are on the field, and a serial heartbreaker.

To most Spies, Alexandria Rosales is the center of the team, the practically-minded one who has a plan for everything, and the one who makes sure that everyone is in good shape and well taken care of.

To themself, Alexandria Rosales is a traumatized mess.

* * *

How Denzel Scott manages to commute from that aggressively ordinary house of theirs in the Houston suburbs - kiss the spouse, drop the kids off at school, drive to work - to whatever damn stadium the Spies are playing at this time, and then get back home to previously mentioned Houston suburban house exactly in time for dinner, Alexandria Rosales will never know.

But today, Denzel hasn't left the locker room. It's been a good half hour after the game; usually Alexandria is the last one out, making sure things haven't been left on the floor or in the lockers, but Denzel's been sitting there for the past several minutes, staring at their tie pin.

"Hi," Alex ventures, finally. "Something up?"

"Thinking," Denzel says. "About what happened, from your perspective, the day Yeong-Ho died."

Yeong-Ho Benitez, a photographer and modern artist, had been a Spy since the revival of the ILB. Though they'd been traded to the Pies a long time ago, they still kept in touch with the Spies between games over the usual encrypted channels. Every day, they sent the Spies a single photo: food, a row of slowly rotting blaseballs, a glittering skyline, a memorial plaque. A sort of diary.

Then they went up in smoke. Season 10. Day 13.

The other Spies heard of it between innings; alternately angry and crushed, they completed that game and then did the usual thing where they all crammed themselves into a hotel room, told stories, and supported each other. This is because, according to the literature, mourning rituals help with grief. Alex wrote the protocol and everything.

But Alex, not being in the pitching rotation for those games, had been sent somewhere else entirely for a mission. So the first they heard of it was in a utility room, situated three floors beneath a hotel's penthouse suite, listening to some microphones they'd planted earlier. For the penthouse guests, an incineration was just the latest gossip; for Alex it was a gutpunch. They sleepwalked through the rest of the mission numbly, got back to base, and started throwing glass after glass after glass at the wall until Denzel pried them away.

Alex sighs. "Is this a good time? Do we really have to get into this?"

"There's _never_ going to be a good time." Denzel turns on every single shower in the locker room full-blast to use the white noise to cover their conversation, and motions for Alex to sit down next to them on the perforated rubber mat that keeps water from pooling on the floor. "But this is an adequate time."

Alex follows. "You're asking me for my feelings."

"Yes."

"I cannot believe you are the one who is actually asking for my feelings. You never do this."

"Nobody else was doing it."

"Question for you first. Why are you pulling me aside like this?"

"You've done the same thing with everyone else. Don't think I haven't noticed." Denzel turns to Alex. "Tell me what happened that night?"

"Well," Alex says, "you stopped me from destroying all the glassware in HQ, sat me down with a mug of chamomile, walked me through grounding exercises until I figured out which way was up, and then made me take my meds and go to bed."

"You know what I mean."

Alex says, slowly, "I wish, so much, that I could have protected them. Then I... remembered that I didn't."

"Uh-huh?"

"It's my fault they're on the team. It has to be my fault. It's always my fault -"

"Alexandria."

"It's not like I'm ever going to be a good person anymore, I should just give up and -"

"Alexandria!"

Alex takes a breath; uncurls their fists. "I... look, if you would rather I keep this to my therapist that's fine. But, well, you did ask."

"If you need an emergency session with the therapist I'll let them know."

"I think," Alex says, standing up, "I want to talk to Fitz."

* * *

Fitzgerald Blackburn is slowly and methodically tearing a piece of paper into tiny pieces of confetti when Alex gets to their hotel room. (Crosscut shredders are significantly better, because they don't leave nearly as many clues in the shapes of the puzzle pieces, but sometimes it just feels good to destroy something, and either way they can always just completely dissolve the paper afterwards by putting it in a blender with water if they really need to. Being with the Spies long enough makes this kind of paranoia second-nature.)

"I'd... I'd like to talk," Alex says. "About myself. For a bit. Is this a good time?"

Fitz picks up their smartphone, gets up, and puts it in the minifridge. They hold it open until Alexandria does the same. "I have a spare moment."

Alex tests the door. Firmly sealed. They turn the television on and flick it to a particularly loud channel for good measure. "So Denzel tried to corner me about my grief at Yeong-Ho Benitez's passing."

"Judging from your presence here, it didn't go well?"

"I thought about how I couldn't protect them, got mad at myself, and then Denzel said I should get someone else to talk me through it." Alex wrings their hands. "Intellectually I know Denzel doesn't usually deal with my particular tragic backstory well anyway, but in this case..."

"Felt like a rejection?"

"Yeah."

"Is it the not being a good person thing again?"

Alex smiles despite themself. "Am I really that predictable?"

"I mean, you came to the other person on the team who has a guilt streak as wide as yours. Stands to reason."

"Remind me why I talk to you again."

"For such scintillating insights as this."

Alex sits at the edge of the hotel bed. "It's just. I heard about it from giggling socialites in a completely different state. Nobody was... there."

"I sent Denzel to check on you."

Alex suddenly turns. "What?"

Fitz looks Alex in the eyes. "I knew the news would hit you hard. So I sent Denzel to try to keep you safe."

"You shouldn't have had to -"

"Denzel tells me that my hunch was right."

"Ffffff." Alex presses a hand to their face. "I wasn't hurting myself, I was just doing property damage."

"You were so out of it that you didn't recognize your _name_."

"I - look, I don't know, it shouldn't have been - why couldn't I just -"

"You were the one who signed Yeong-Ho onto the Spies in the first place. You had more of a connection than anyone else on the team did. There's enough of a throughline there for me to tell that you'd assume it was straight-up your _fault_. Because I would've, if I were in your position."

"You're right and I hate it."

"So," Fitz says. "Do we want to dredge up the guilt thing tonight?"

"I can't help people. I wish I could, but every time I've tried it makes things worse. This time, someone died. Last time, people died. And yet people are dying anyway! So even if I don't do anything it makes things worse!"

Fitz reaches out to squeeze Alex's hand.

Alex continues. "So I do _nothing_. Even if I could. Even if I should. Because I can't forget how I completely ruined it before."

"Okay, how did you ruin it before?" Fitz asks.

"How much have you heard about how I joined the Spies?"

"There was some sort of ancestral cursed sword, I think? Other than that, it's above my classification level."

"I burnt down a building and killed everyone inside."

Fitz says nothing.

"...Yeah, that's how most people react."

The hotel television continues to play background noise of some sort or other, not quite filling the silence enough to make it non-awkward. "I assume there's context for this," Fitz says, finally.

Alex looks down at the floor. "Okay, so there was a bar I used to work at. And we were trying to unionize. And then we all got called in and fired at the same time. And then I got angry."

"So... how'd a sword get involved, exactly?"

"I'm not completely sure. I _think_ I screamed for everyone to leave the building, my coworkers ran, and then I sealed the exits so that the owners wouldn't get out. Then something ignited in my hands and... well, there was fire. And blood. And then I was standing in a pile of ashes."

"Standing in a pile of ashes," Fitz murmurs. "I know that feeling."

Alex continues. "After that, well, someone I didn't recognize at the time in a certain trenchcoat and hat showed up, and made me an offer I couldn't refuse."

"So let me get this straight." Fitz counts on their fingers. "You were angry at people who had done something incredibly wrong to you and yours. You got everyone who hadn't done anything wrong out. And then something _else_ activated and destroyed the people who had wronged you?"

"What if someone ran back in for their purse? What if someone was in the back room and hadn't heard? I don't - I don't even know why I brought Da's sword that day. I shouldn't have brought it. Swords have no non-combat use. If I hadn't been so _stupid_ none of this would have happened - "

"Sometimes cursed ancestral swords just bring themselves."

"...I mean, I guess?"

Fitz ventures: "Need a hug?"

Alex crumples into Fitz's waiting arms and sobs, choking out - "I ruin everything I have ever touched."

"You have set up plenty of things for the Spies and the team is _fine_."

"Someone's trying to form a union and I should be helping. But I can't, because I'd just shatter - "

Fitz's voice is firm, insistent. "That is called _knowing your limitations_ and I thought that was a good thing."

Fitz picked that tone of voice up from Alex. Despite everything, Alex feels a spark of pride there. "You're making it very hard for me to beat myself up."

"What else am I supposed to do, just let someone insult a friend of mine that way?"

Alex laughs weakly.

Fitz lets Alex hold on until they feel collected enough to pull away.

"So - " Alex scrubs at their face - "what do I do now?"

"What you need to do right now, I think, is keep putting one foot in front of the other. Like. It hasn't even been a month. Obviously you'd still be pretty wobbly even if you didn't have all these other things rattling around in your head."

"All right."

"Do you think you'll be able to make it back to your room?"

"I... don't want to be seen in public right now."

Fitz reaches over to turn the TV off. "I'll call the front desk and see if they can get us an extra cot, then."

"I'll tell Math to go get my things, because Math won't ask any weird questions."

"I'll start the coffeemaker to get you hot water for tea."

"I'll take a shower while I wait." Alex reaches over to the minifridge to retrieve their phones.

Fitz flashes a thumbs-up. "Good plan."

* * *

Jordan Hildebert is leaning against a wall in HQ, in that one faux-casual pose that they assume whenever they're trying really hard to be cool. Alexandria walks up and assumes the exact same pose, mirrored.

"So, Jordan," Alex says. "I have a question."

Jordan raises their eyebrows. "Shoot."

"Why'd you recruit me?" Alex asks.

"...what?"

"Why did you pick me to recruit, then and there, and not someone else?"

Jordan's response is careful, measured. "We'd been following a number of potential candidates. People who were capable and willing to organize and lead. You were one of the ones we were surveilling, to see if you had other suitable personal qualities. Then, uh, you ended up in the position you did, and we accelerated the timeframe."

"Was me burning down a building a qualification?"

"I mean, it contributed, but..."

Alex gets up; crosses their arms; paces back and forth. "Let me try again. Did you need someone who would willingly murder for you? Is that what it's about?"

Jordan straightens up. "It had absolutely nothing to do with the murder."

"Then _why me_?"

"Because arson wasn't anywhere on your psychological profile, so I figured it wasn't entirely you, and then I saw you looking at the sword in your hand, horrified and lost, and I had to do something about it."

"So, pity, then?"

"You were _already qualified_ , otherwise I wouldn't have been following you in the first place."

"Qualified like...?"

Jordan turns to stare at Alex. "Look. Do you have any idea how long it usually takes to train an agent? Do you know how good you are at keeping your wits about you and continuing to plot and execute in an emergency? Do you understand how difficult it is to get some of the others to _ask for help when they need it_?"

Alex's hands drop. "I..."

"Alexandria Rosales, you are quite possibly the most talented and valuable agent I have yet seen in our corner of the Agency and I consider it an honor to have found and brought you here."

"...I was going to say something else. But. Well." There are hot tears at the corners of Alex's eyes. "Thank you. I needed that."

"Anytime. Now if you don't mind," Jordan says, "there are several file boxes of old paperwork that need to be fed into the shredder before midnight."

"And I'm guessing you haven't even started doing it yet, because you were too busy practicing your Mysterious Brooding."

"I suppose you're not wrong." Jordan turns around; beckons. "So are you going to help or what?"

**Author's Note:**

> While the individual bits of tradecraft are real, when and how they get used is not. These tricks alone will not help unless and until you develop actual threat models and become consistent in using them. Please spy responsibly.


End file.
